Og i Skovene dybe Søer 1928

Fritz Syberg made this drawing of a forest scene with ink on paper. Look at the marks he made, like he was in a hurry to record the image. The drawing is so immediate. I can feel Syberg standing there, in the damp air. The hand hurries to capture the scene. He must have been thinking about the tradition of landscape painting, but eager to do it his own way. Those lines are so descriptive, so scratchy, so dark! The darks are really dark, right? So much ink in some places that it almost feels sculptural. He’s pressing hard, pulling up, dipping again. It reminds me of some of Kiefer’s landscapes, but with a scrawling, intimate feel. Syberg's work shares a quality of restless exploration, that I feel in my own practice, an ongoing conversation across time.